


Through the Night

by Forlorn_Melody



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, So much angst, disaster couple, you didn't come here for fluff did you?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 09:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forlorn_Melody/pseuds/Forlorn_Melody
Summary: Neither Thane Krios nor Jane Shepard want to spent their last night alone. But even the most tender of touches can't keep the ghosts at bay.





	Through the Night

“And what do your gods think of this?” Jane Shepard says it with tongue in cheek, grinding up against his hips. 

Thane grins wickedly against her lips. Jane wonders if her next high will be as _amazing_ as the first. She darts her tongue out only for Thane to pull back out of her reach in a sort of pout. “You do realize Arashu was originally a fertility goddess?”

“Wait. Does this mean you get to have sacred orgies? Cause I’m in.” She licks her own lips, running a hand down his chest. “For the fucking. Just the fucking.”

Other people would turn up their noses at her sacrilegious jokes, but Thane chuckles as he pulls her close again. His cheek rests against hers as he slips into memory. 

“We thought we were doing what the gods wanted--using all our power to drain Rakhana of every bit of life it had. We thought Arashu would reward us with more, and that Amonkira would continue to send us animals to hunt. But we were wrong. Many of the drell stayed behind on Rakhana, seeing our death as a punishment for our actions. Others saw them as our redemption. We believed rain was a heavenly gift, you see.”

It’s easy to get lost with Thane as she listens to his words and his breathing. “Kahje must have seemed like heaven.”

“Oh, it did, for a time.” His next breath is jagged. “Until we realized heaven destroyed our lungs.”

“Is that why so few believe?”

Thane doesn’t really frown, not in a human way, but his face hardens, and his eyes focus on something beyond her. “Perhaps.”

Shepard was never much for religion. Sure, she’d listen to Ash back on the SRI talk about God like He was her old friend. Or Liara talk about Athame, or even the Siari philosophy. Or Garrus and his Spirits. Or Tali and her Ancestors. “Then why do you believe?” Chewing her lip, Shepard looks away. It’s probably rude to ask, but she can’t help her curiosity. 

His scaled hand cradles the back of her head as Thane looks into her eyes, or perhaps someone else's. “There are two things death cannot take away--memory, and belief.”

Shepard hasn’t been to church in a long time, not since she was living on the streets of Vancouver, but something about Thane’s breath on her skin feels like benediction--his hands on her body like prayer. She’s never considered herself very spiritual, but if there’s a heaven--Shepard imagines it feels like this. 

“Like martyrs, you mean?”

Thane rolls over her, gazing down at her like midnight and noon caught in an intimate embrace. “Like saints,” he murmurs, before claiming her mouth with his. 

* * *

“Are you sure about this, Siha?” Thane looks up at her, scrutinizing her face, reading every line. He told her once that reading behavior was the second most important skill in taking down a target. The first was remaining undetected. 

“Thane.” Shepard squeezes his hands. “If I die, I want to die having known you.” It’s mostly true. Or partly true. Jane Shepard can’t stand the thought of spending her last night alone. “Please.” Maybe the only truth coming out of her mouth is the desperation in her voice. 

“I need to be certain you want this. Before we do anything.” His inner eyelids close and reopen as he takes a breath. Thane’s chin ducks down slightly as he continues. “Mordin told you about Drell venom?”

Shepard nods. “Hallucinogenic. What about it?” She needs to be held, to hold in turn, to taste him and forget the world. If she gets high in the process then so be it. 

“Once you taste it...taste me, you’ll want _nothing_ else.” It’s a warning, but it sends warm shivers down her spine, nonetheless. “I need you to say it. Before you taste me.” He squeezes her side, his fingers trailing up and down her skin despite himself. 

“I want you.” Shepard says without hesitation, resting her forehead against his. “Do you want me?”

“Yes, Siha. With every breath inside my lungs.” He kisses her, and her whole world narrows to him. 

His skin, normally so cool to the touch, flares with heat. Jane itches to feel every inch of it, tracing her fingers down the opening of his shirt, she pushes off his jacket so she can feel how the size of his scales change as they move past his shoulders. Thane’s mouth tastes like salt on watermelon. The stripes on his sides don’t make him more alien, they make him more _Thane_. She draws her lips across them, feeling his breath hitch. No belly button interrupts her journey to the top of his waistband, and Shepard pulls back to look up at him.

Thane cradles her chin with his thumb, and Jane closes her eyes, humming at how smooth it feels against her skin. The soft hands of an assassin--not the callused hands of a soldier. “What is it, Siha?”

“Just thinking how this isn’t the first time I’ve stared Death in the face.”

This man doesn’t really snort, maybe Drell never do, but he lets out a huff of air that must approximate one. “I’m not Death personified. I’m just its instrument.”

“Do _not_ go telling me I’m unsheething your “sword.” Do _not_.” With that, Shepard yanks down his pants, and her breath catches in her throat. She isn’t sure what she was expecting--not that she really cared or minded. Thane could have had a mess of _tentacles_ down there and Jane Shepard would still find a way to bring him past the brink. Honestly the shape isn’t that foreign--phallic and ahem, long, not too thick either. Shepard’s mouth dries as she imagines how it will feel with Thane inside her. The various shades of green--the patterns which she traces with her fingertip--are not ones she’d find on a human dick, but that’s not really what catches her attention. It’s the slight bumps on either side. 

“Like what you see?”

Shepard answers by taking him into her mouth.

* * *

Thane doesn't kid around. Every nerve inside her veins floats, tingling as the world shifts in color. His fused fingers thrusting in and out of her arching body, leaves her a whimpering, boneless mess. The first time, when his mouth explores her vulva, she’s cognizant enough to say his name as her insides tighten and pulse. They’re not so lucky the second time. 

It sobers her to hear Kaidan’s name out loud, even when it just slipped from her lips. “Thane, I….”

Pressing a finger to her lips, Thane runs his other hand through her hair. “I don’t mind, Siha.” His sigh rumbles through her bones. Even now it’s hard to tell where she ends and he begins. “May I tell you something?” He says it so quietly she almost doesn’t hear him.

“What is it?”

“I was also thinking of someone else.”

“Irikah?”

Thane nods against her head, his frills brushing her ear. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re one sad mess of a couple.”

Shepard half expects him to laugh. Instead he pulls her closer. “I’m glad you’re here, Shepard.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too.”

* * *

Sometime during the sleep cycle, Jane Shepard wakes to find Thane watching her. 

“I’m being unfair to you.” The scales on Thane’s hand trail up and down Jane Shepard’s bare arm.

She rolls over, letting his breath stir the hairs that have fallen in front of her face. “What makes you say that?” Truth be told, he’s the only fair thing in her very unfair life. Maybe she’s the one being unfair to _him_. But letting go of him right now would be like letting go of her will to breathe. 

“You know I’m dying, but you give yourself to me anyway.”

“We’re _all_ dying, Thane.” Shepard wills herself to say it, though the thought of perishing again in Cerberus hands fills her mouth with bile. “You signed on for a suicide mission, remember?”

“You have so little faith in your future.” “Is it because of you d--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jane cuts him off, holding him tighter. 

“Siha--it’s okay to be afraid.”

“Thane, stop. I don’t”

“Shepard.” He tries to pull her back. She twists out of his grip. 

“I already told you.”

“Jane.” He says it so sharply that it makes her skin bleed. Jane Shepard freezes in his grasp, staring up at him. “I mean what I said.” The heel of his hand grazes the edge of her jaw, rough and smooth at the same time. “Fearing death will keep you, and everyone else alive.”

Her breath rattles within her chest, and she breathes in his scent. Maybe it’s her imagination, but he smells like a seashore. “How are you not afraid?”

Thane kisses her soothingly, then cradles her head against his chest. Shepard can hear the rasp as he breathes in and out. “I don’t believe death is the end. It’s only a rest after a long journey.”

“But how do you know you’re going to wake up in the ocean and swim to the shore?”

“Why are you asking me?” Thane looks down at her, frowning. _You’re the expert on dying, Shepard. _“Did _you_ see anything?”

Shepard wants to lie to him--better to lie than break his heart, but she can’t. Shaking her head, she answers softly, “I wish I could believe like you do.”

“Then I shall have faith for both of us, Siha.” Thane kisses the top of her head. “And you’ll make sure we won’t need it.  


**Author's Note:**

> Still not 100% happy with this. Also, wasn't sure whether to rate it Mature of Explicit, so lemme know if you want it changed.


End file.
